Drink and Damage Grace Wu and Karen Law Robert Alexander McMath Secondary Floor Location: M119H

Have you ever wondered what the consequences of drinking too much unhealthy beverages are? Teachers, parents, and doctors have told you for years that if you drink too many unhealthy beverages it will affect your teeth, but you never seem to notice anything happening to them. The purpose of our science fair experiment is to find out if the “Drink and Damage” theory is really true, and if so which beverages have the worst effect on your teeth.

As we are unable to use real teeth in this experiment, we came up with a substitution…hard-boiled eggs. We have chosen five drinks, plus water, to test in this experiment: coke, Gatorade, coffee, green tea, and orange juice. The reason why we will be putting an egg into water is because an average person drinks water everyday. Therefore, by putting an egg into water, our experiment will be as realistic as possible. Another reason why putting an egg into water will be a good idea is to prove that the effects and outcomes of drinking those beverages are worse than just drinking plain water.

We have predicted that yes, the “Drink and Damage” theory is true, and that Gatorade will have the worst effects, because based on research we found out that it contains additives and organic acids that are very erosive to dental enamel. Therefore, it has the ability to break down the calcium needed to strengthen our teeth. We think that green tea will have the least effects on teeth, because based on research we discovered that the regular consumption of green tea is actually very good for your teeth and gums, as it keeps them healthy. Green tea is also very similar to water, therefore if it does have effects, they should be very minute.

Our experiment is fairly simple: first we boiled 16 eggs until they were fully cooked. Next we labeled each container with the beverage it will eventually hold, we then poured in the beverage. Then, we will place three eggs into each container, and left them there for two weeks. We did, however take our eggs out to brush them twice a day (after waking up and before sleeping), before placing them back into the beverage. We brushed the eggs twice because a regular person brushes their teeth twice a day.

We learned many things from this experiment, for example we saw that our hypothesis was correct, and that Gatorade indeed had the worst effect on teeth. Coke had the second worst effect, followed by orange juice and coffee. Next to water, green tea as we predicted had the least effect.

Many people consume damaging drinks these days, and that was what motivated us to do this experiment. We wanted to show everyone, how beverages such as pop and sports drinks, did have a huge impact on our teeth. Although we may not be able to see these horrendous effects now, in the long run they will become more and more visible.